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Indian Technology Workers Worry About a Job Threat: Technology

By NIDA NAJARJUNE 25, 2017

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Sudhakar Choudhari, who was recently laid off from his job at Tech Mahindra, searching for job listings at his apartment in suburban Pune.
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Atul Loke for The New York Times

PUNE, India — Last month, Sudhakar Choudhari took the company bus as usual from his one-bedroom apartment to the suburban offices of Tech Mahindra, a major employer of workers in India that powers the global technology machine behind the scenes. Then a manager took him into a conference room and asked him to resign.

“It was a terrible scene for me,” said Mr. Choudhari, 41, who had been with the company for 11 years and most recently maintained software for a British client. As the manager spoke, he thought: “I have an 11-year-old child. My wife is not working. How to pay the home loans?”

Mr. Choudhari is one of a number of Indian technology workers who have lost their jobs in recent months as many in India debate whether an industry that has long served as a gateway to the middle class is preparing to shed jobs en masse.

India’s information technology industry grew at a breakneck speed over the past two decades thanks to the trend commonly called offshoring. The industry and related businesses generate more than $150 billion in annual revenue and employ about four million people to build and test software, to enter and analyze data, and to provide customer support for American and European companies looking for relatively inexpensive labor.